It should obviously be as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up. I feel like anyone who thinks cancelling subscriptions should be hard is probably up to no good.
WIRED – Reece Rogers Jul 9, 2025 5:25 PM The ‘Click-to-Cancel’ Rule Was Killed, but Consumer Advocates Could Revive It – A US court scrapped a rule requiring a simple method for canceling recurring payments. Experts are hopeful regulators will revisit the issue and ease consumers’ rage over “subscription traps.” United States residents almost escaped subscription cancellation hell, but the Federal Trade Commission’s “Click to Cancel” rule was unanimously struck down by the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Tuesday—just days before it was set to go into effect. What would have happened if this updated FTC rule had gone into effect on July 14 as planned? “The stated goal was that they wanted to make it as easy for you to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up,” says John Breyault, vice president of public policy, telecommunications, and fraud at the National Consumers League. How reasonable! It’s the type of rule that sounds like it should already exist as part of baseline consumer protections.
My letter to reps:
I don’t know why the FTC click-to-cancel rule was stopped by some court decision, but it should be a baseline law on the books by this point because it’s just common sense fairness in the marketplace. MAKE CLICK-TO-CANCEL A LAW.
Please feel free to copy or repurpose for your own letters to reps.
Senator Chris Van Hollen said click-to-cancel is in the proposed Consumer Opt-In Act.